My Invisalign Journey - Culpeper, VA

Well, its been about a year since I started what was supposed to be a 6 month invisalign journey, and I've decided to come back and give my final impression. I'm voting Not Worth it. As stated in a prior post, after I was not happy with the 6 month Invisalign treatment (which was my second round of braces in 20 years, so we weren't even starting from scratch), we decided to go with ceramic braces with tad implants on the top for 6 months, and then finish top and bottom with Invisalign for another 6 months. I had an ortho appointment today, and as I was getting excited that hopefully all the gear would be out of my mouth by my next appointment, my ortho informed me that while I was making good progress with the ceramics, if we switched back to Invisalign next month I was likely looking at another year of treatment, where as if we just kept the course and added ceramic to the bottom as well, I'd be done in 6 months. Being that Invisalign is not truely invisible and it would mean having more buttons put on my teeth I made the decision to follow his suggestion and continue with the ceramics top and bottom. Wish I had made this decision a year ago and I'd have been done by now. This is just my experience and I know there are many others that are quite happy with Invisalign. I think my ortho summed it up quite fairly, he said "Invisalign is a mediocre product and I am a complicated case". I think if you need anything more than simple alignment you should seriously consider althernatives rather than wasting your time with Invisalign. Good luck all!

Well, its October now and I'm almost finished with tray 10 of 12 upper and lower. If you can overlook the color of my teeth (which I know I need to do something about) for long enough to look at the alignment and bite, while you will see it has changed slightly, I'm of the opinion at this point that it has been the biggest waste of $5,000 that I have ever experienced in my life. The primary issue that I decided to embark on this journey was because I was tired of seeing my tongue protrude when smiling in pictures. I told my othordontist that I was trying to decide between doing braces for a second time (my bite was closed after the first round but I neglected my retainer) and they showed me beautiful pictures of the final anticipated result after 12 aligners top and bottom. I realize that doesn't change the color, but I at least expected my tongue to not show through my open bite as it did in the beginning (which it didn't after my initial round of braces 20 years ago). I've suggested that maybe I need rubber bands again (although I'd like to avoid it if possible), but I'm not sure he knows how to do that with Invisalign. My bite is funky now and I see really little if any improvement for over $5,000. I will continue to update, but unless my refinement period is going to have at least as many if not more aligners than my initial treatment, I'm not seeing how I'm going to end up happy or finding this treatment to be worthwhile. I could have taken that same money and gotten a few more veneers and I'm certain I would have been much happier at this point.

Well, I'm 14 weeks of 24 in now, and I still can't say that at this point that I feel the over $5K I spent is worth it yet. I'm starting to regret it and wishing I had put that same $5K towards some purely cosmetic work, as I'm seeing little if any improvement of my bite, and my teeth were already straight for the most part, now it seems sometimes like the two front teeth are jutting out like rabbit's teeth. I'll remain patient and make my final determination when its complete.